Saturday, March 17, 2007

Pots Calling Kettles Black

or What's Good for the Goose is Good for the Gander

not sci fi related, but just thought I'd comment on a couple of issues.

Over in Hawaii, a couple of native Hawaiians beat up on a Caucasian couple, seriously injuring them. One of the Hawaiians called them 'stinking haoles'. Haole is a deragoty term for whites, apparently. So, the prosecutors are 'investigating' whether they should charge this as a hate crime. If it were the other way around, with the same facts - you know there'd be no investigation about it. But since its minorities doing the crime and the white people who are the victims... (Which is not to say that I don't think the kingdom of Hawaii got the shaft back in the 1800s when they were literally invaded and taken over by businessmen/American polilticians, and that there aren't whites who aren't unjustly prejudiced against Hawaiians -- I'm saying that a hate crime is a hate crime - but it's rather more difficult for white/straight victims to get that call.)

Then, I took a brief dash to my local library and had the radio turned on for a few seconds. Don't know the name of the show, but some guy was saying that if you were a politician and said something against Hilary Clinton, the "Ice Princess," the Clintons would go after you and find something in your past political career to bury you.

And I'm sure that's very true. But...are the Clintons the only politicians who do that? No! Every politician vying for office tries to get the dirt on their opponent. Indeed, here in Virginia I voted for a Democrat, James Webb, specifically because his opponent, an incumbent Republican, brought up the fact that Webb had written books which featured scenes of violence against women and gay sex. The thing is....these were FICTION books, set in Vietnam, etc. during the Vietnam war, and that's the kind of thing that goes into those types of books. But Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity got into the act and it was just pathetic. So I said, hell with you guys, I'm voting for Webb.